Pieces On The Floor
by MoreThingsInHeavenAndEarth
Summary: When the Doctor arrives in a small town, lonely and broken, he meets Scarlett Redmond, a schoolgirl who drags them both into an adventure neither expected. And they might just be enough to save eachother.
1. The Girl With The Blue Fingernails

This story is quite scary for me to put out there, because it's a bit angsty and deep and personal later on. And it's my first multi-chapter story. So, please read it, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you stick with it.  
**SUMMARY **This is set after The Parting of The Ways, and before The Next Doctor. It's just what I imagine might have happened in the gap between.  
**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Doctor Who, c'mon guys, I think we all know that.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

A group of giggling schoolgirls observed The Doctor as he walked through the town centre. He pulled at his collar self-consciously when they broke into renewed titters as he passed them, all nudging each other and muttering under their breaths. There was something about schoolgirls The Doctor found unnerving, it was the way they flicked their hair and giggled in gaggles behind their hands. It was like they were laughing at you. The Doctor thought back to when Sarah-Jane and Rose had met and realised grown women were just as bad.

He had come into the small village to find a cream cake, which he'd had a sudden craving for, and was now seriously regretting leaving his TARDIS just metres away from a secondary school. For a moment he let his mind settle on Donna, who'd introduced him to the particular delicacy of the non-desert-desert, but promptly forced himself to think of something else. He'd been doing this dance for weeks now, ever since the Day He'd Lost Them All, he'd think of one of them, Rose, Donna, anyone and have to think of something else. He'd switch between what he'd call his 'Surface Thoughts' (just frivolous nothing thoughts about Hooke's Law and the like) and his 'Real Thoughts'.

As the Doctor sat in the cafe battling with his chosen desert he wished he had one of those mobile phones or iPod's, simply so he didn't look at such a loose end, sitting there on his own. All the other single people in the cafe where talking to people on the other end of their telephones or plugged into some of that ridiculous music Martha used to listen to. The table he was sat at was next to large window and from it he could see the schoolgirls eating their lunches in the sunshine, happy and carefree, and he envied their youth. The blonde one nudged the brunette, who threw back her head in laughter at something the red-head had told her, then seemed to excuse herself and began to walk away alone, pushing up the sleeves of her blazer to feel the sun on her arms, walking with cheerful, bouncing steps. If he'd have looked harder, he would have seen that her eyes were dull and blank, the laugh was false and her cheerful steps stopped as soon as she got around the corner, but he was blinded by his own misery, a sea of wretched self-pity.

The Doctor shook his head and looked away from the girl, wishing he could merely take of his jacket to feel better, finished the cream-filled pastry, determinedly not thinking of Donna, and began the walk back to the TARDIS, which had been the perfect size for two, suddenly swamped one.

When he got to the TARDIS, he found himself a little irritated that it was open, for he'd thought he'd locked it. Perhaps he was losing his mind now on top of everything else. It wouldn't surprise him. He wasn't sure he would even care. He opened the door wishing that he could see someone, anyone, waiting for him, somebody who could save him from the silence, save him from himself.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, he could tell there was something undeniably strange about the feel of the TARDIS, the air felt different, and as he walked slowly over to the controls to put the machine into autopilot, he thought he heard someone breathing. He paused for a moment, to check, but could now hear nothing. His ears must have formed some kind of scar tissue, trying to make him think nothing had happened and everything was as it always had been. He shook his head and put his fingers to his temples, trying to ease the fuzzy headache of self-delusion.

Eventually, he roused himself and pushed the handle which sent the TARDIS off into the sea of space. His head snapped up when, as a particularly violent shudder made the floor fall to the left, he heard a stifled gasp, and was sure he'd seen somebody's fingers desperately grab onto the controls to stop themselves sliding into view. His heart gave a little jump, and he could feel the thrill of danger reverberating around his body. Action! At last, after sluggish days of self-loathing and pity, there was something to care about again!

"I know you're in here." He kept his voice cold and menacing, beginning to edge around towards the source of attention.

He heard a gasp, and then a scrambling noise of shoes against floors. Sheepishly, the school-girl from the town square stood up from behind the opposite side of controls. "Hello." She said nervously, smiling at him.

Of all the things that had raced through his mind in the moments before the girl had revealed herself, this was not one of them. The Doctor stood gaping at her utterly speechless. For a moment he just stared at her, as out of place in his TARDIS as the Titanic or a Bride. "What?"

"I was one of the girls in the town square, I think you saw us? Whoa!" She grabbed at the lever to stop herself from falling as the floor swayed from under her. Her tights were slightly wrinkled around her ankles.

He nodded dumbly, mouthing wordlessly at her.

"I left, just before you did. It was unlocked." She suddenly began to nod at him, agitated by some thought that had crossed her mind. "It was unlocked, I didn't break in or anything. I'm not a chav, before you make some sarky 'youth-of-today' comment. I haven't got an ASBO. Anyway, I just wanted to look inside. But it _was_ unlocked."

_No it wasn't,_ thought the Doctor, as now he was certain he'd left it locked. Then, another, more disturbing thought occurred to him. "How did you see it?"

"Pardon?"

"How did you see it, how did you see this?"

"It was just right there. It's a blue box, not exactly invisible." She crossed her eyebrows in bewilderment, confused by his strange line of questioning.

_She couldn't have seen it, it's not supposed to be seen, it's supposed to make people want to look away. _He shook his head confusedly. "But why? Why would you just follow a strange man you didn't know into a blue box?" The Doctor registered that he should be angry, as opposed to just intrigued by this strange girl. God, he must be desperate for company.

"Well, you're really very lovely looking, and I have double maths after lunch." The girl said this as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "And I got in here because I wanted to see what they looked like inside, my Gran has a picture of one in her attic, on a postcard." She looked around at the interior of the TARDIS, her left hand slightly raised, fingers trailing through empty air as if caressing the time around them. It looked respectful. He liked her for that. "Something's telling me they're not all like this though."

The Doctor was blown away by the composure of this girl who stood there in a striped tie and blazer, inside a time machine with a strange man, talking of double maths and attics. Up close, he could see that her hair was not so much brown as rusted copper, like the less-reliable parts of the TARDIS engine. She still had her blazer sleeves rolled up, her straight fringe had become tousled, her green eyes gleaming and her pale cheeks were flushed with excitement.

"What is this, then? Some kind of film set or something? I know they're filming a science fiction film up the road, it's all the boys can talk about." She rolled her eyes. "Is it on some kind of see-saw thing, like at Disney World? How do they get it bigger on the inside?"

"Umm," The Doctor realised he couldn't throw this girl out of the TARDIS just yet, as they were currently floating in the middle of some far-flung galaxy, that, and he had no idea where she came from. "The thing is... what's your name?"

"Scarlett. Scarlett Redmond." She held out her hand for The Doctor to shake. He saw that she had chipped electric blue nail varnish on her chewed fingernails, and on her left hand she had scrawled _Mths Hwk _in black biro. "What's yours?"

"The Doctor." She had a strong grip, and didn't break eye-contact once. He wished she would, her piercing green eyes unnerved him slightly.

Scarlett snorted. "Doctor Who? No-one's called 'The Doctor', who do you think you are? A Bond villain?"

He frowned. "No, my name really is The Doctor."

"I'm sure. What do you do then, heart Doctor? Plastic Surgeon?" Scarlett folded her arms across her chest and stared him out.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, a wicked gleam in his eyes, feeling alive for the first time in a long time. "I'm a Timelord."

"A Timelord? What's that?"

"It means I travel in time and space."

She swallowed a gasp, and for the first time a look of real worry swept over her pretty features. "Get out." The air suddenly seemed thick as Scarlett stared at The Doctor, and then around at the TARDIS, looking at the controls and the lights. Rushing over to the back wall she put her hands up and felt it's solidness, gasping she ran to do the same to the sides. Turning around to face him again, wide-eyed and mouth open in shock, "You're telling the truth aren't you?"

He nodded slowly. "Open the door, but stay far back."

Scarlett walked over to the door and, her hand trembling slightly, pushed down the handle.

Outside was The Universe.

Stars, moons, planets, a patchwork quilt of the glory of space.

Travelling for hundreds of years you could get a bit jaded with it all, supernovas and cascades became part of daily life, a bit like brushing your teeth, but watching someone discover that beyond the Earth there is infinity was almost like discovering it all over again. As he watched this new girl, he couldn't see her anymore, but Rose and Martha and Donna. It was their look of wonder and disbelief he was looking at, not this girls.

When Scarlett turned around the Doctors hands were shaking on the controls, but he smiled when he looked at her.

"This is amazing." She breathed. "I'm in a time machine. With a time travelling... Alien?"

"I prefer Timelord, but if we're being picky, alien's passable."

"So you can go anywhere at any time? Like, if I said Mars in the 12th century, you could take me?"

"I could, but I wouldn't recommend it. Not enough water and far too much dust, gets all caught up in your hair and..... well, better places to go. There's this one planet made of diamonds."

"_Diamonds!!!! _This is so cool!!" Scarlett began to jump up and down on the spot, hugging herself and squealing. "So, how many more of you are there? Do you have a planet? Will you take me there?"

A look of pain crossed the Doctors handsome face. "No." Subject. Closed.

Scarlett stopped bouncing and stood, fingers tracing patterns on her palm. An aura of joy surrounded her, pure and human. It made the Doctor smile.

"You're very believing of all this. It usually takes people a lot longer to trust me."

"I believe in magic, I've got to get my kicks where I can." She joked, emitting a hazy, petrol-chuckle. "Not everything is black and white, true or false. I guess this is just one of those times where someone's blurred the lines. _There are more things in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your philosophy_. "

"Hamlet." He nodded in appreciation, impressed. "I met Shakespeare you know."

"Seriously? That's incredible; he was a genius, a genius! The way he used words! Oh! What was he like?"

"A bit of a flirt really."

"Oh." Scarlett looked crestfallen.

The Doctor quickly backtracked; there was no need to shatter her illusion. "Troubled though, a dark and tortured soul. And like you said, brilliant."

"I'm so jealous; I bet you've met JRR Tolkien too."

"Now he was one incredible man, and he made a good cup of tea." For a moment he was lost in memories of the perfect amount of milk and sugar. "Right! Well!" The Doctor began to leap around the dashboard, pressing buttons and making things whirr and beep.

"What are you doing?" Scarlett called over the racket.

"Taking you back home of course!"

"You're not!" Her voice was panicked. She followed him round, trying to stop him pressing the buttons. "You cannot take me back now; you have to show me somewhere."

"I can't, you're only about 12, and you must have parents and school you need to get back to!"

"I'm 15, and double maths, I told you!" Quickly anticipating where he was headed next Scarlett pulled herself up onto one of the panels, smiling in a way which made him think that this girl was used to using her feminine charms to get what she wanted. "Now you can't reach it, you're not taking me home."

The Doctor looked horrified. "This is delicate equipment; you can't just go sitting on it! We might be headed to a black hole now!"

"Oh I don't think so." Scarlett crossed her legs and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, "This is my lucky day."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________-

Well done for making it to the end of the first chapter, there will be more to come! I give you all one of the aforementioned cream buns =] Please reveiw if you liked it and if you didn't, because I like constructive criticism. Thankyou!


	2. I've always fancied having a tutor

**DISCLAIMER: **I own nothing that you recognize. I also do not own The Bronte's, any of their referenced work, Harry Potter, Shakespeare... you get the idea.  
Because I forgot to explain last time, the title of this is from the song 'Happiness' by The Fray. It is a beauiful, poignent song which you shoud check out. (I don't own them either.)  
Now I want to thank all the wonderfull people who reviewed, it made my day: pipinheart middlekertz novacancymind James Birdsong CrazySmallLady BellsAndRoses, **thankyou**. You're great.

Now for the story!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Where are we?" Scarlett asked; hand on the door knob, suddenly nervous.

"Where's your confidence gone miss?" The Doctor asked, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "I thought you weren't sacred of anything. On the other side of this door there could be Daleks or Cybermen."

Scarlett looked pensive. "I had this dream once, a nightmare. There was evil, evil man, like Stalin or Hitler, who took over the world. Samson.... or, Saxon! His name was Saxon! There were rockets everywhere, and a spaceship. Yes! That's it! He was an alien, the dictator. There were rockets everywhere." She turned her green, green eyes to The Doctor's. "What if the world's like that?"

It was hard to keep a look of shock off his face. How did she know that? No-one was supposed to know that, that was the year-that-never-was, how did she have even any slight recollection of that? Suddenly, he didn't want to send this strange girl home anymore, he needed to find out about her, about why she remembered something that had never happened. "It won't be. I promise you. The world won't be like that." To lighten the mood he added, "but if you're too scared......"

"Right!" She proclaimed, and wrenched open the door. Her eyes flashed in annoyance at the innuendo of being a coward, and for a moment The Doctor saw Martha there, standing looking out at the surface of the moon from a hospital window. '_We might die.' 'We might not'_.

He quickly shook his head and followed his young charge out onto.... a windswept moor. "How disappointing." He heard Scarlett say, staring around at the gray sky and rough bracken. "This is just Yorkshire. I came here at Easter."

"Well then I can take you back home," said The Doctor hopefully.

"No chance! Maybe you've forgotten but your TARDIS is a time machine too, we could well be 800 years into the future. And there are people here, out there on the horizon."

He reached out his hand, waggling his fingers. "You asked for an adventure, Madam. Do you still want one?" Scarlett nodded and took it, and together they began to run.

As they dashed across the blasted heath, their suggestions for the figures became more and more ridiculous. "Perhaps it's a foreign Prince, and he'll fall in love with me and take me to his palace." she laughed.

"It might be a beautiful French Courtesan, and she'll fall in love with _me_!" replied the Doctor.

"Ha! That would _never_ happen." Scarlett gave a bark of laughter. "It could be......." They were getting closer now; close enough for somebody to be able recognize an acquaintance. "It could be Charlotte Bronte." Scarlett had stopped, staring at the 4 people just ahead of them. "It is, it's Charlotte Bronte. OHMYGOD _its Charlotte Bronte!_"

Of the quintet, three were girls. One was slightly puddingy, with ruddy cheeks. Another was small and thin and had a pinched, pale face. The boy was just entering adolescence, dark and wiry, his hair perpetually falling into his eyes. The third girl was certainly the oldest, not particularly pretty, but curious-looking, with dark smudges under her eyes. It was she who spoke. "I'm sorry, but, are you talking to me?"

"Yes, yes I am. I am, Miss Bronte." Scarlett's smile was bestial as she curtseyed. The Doctor thought that perhaps this girl's eccentric love of old literature extended to The Bronte's as well.

"I apologise, but how do you know my name? Perhaps it is in part due to my poor memory, but I do not recall your face." Charlotte Bronte's gaze was clear and kind, although wary, as if she feared the two strangers were pickpockets.

The Doctor took this as his cue to step in, for stories aided by physic paper were his speciality. "This is my ward Scarlett Redmond, I am her tutor. We were supposed to be travelling to Scotland to meet with her Father, Admiral Redmond of the King's Fleet. Our carriage was intercepted by highwaymen and we have been wandering the moors. The townspeople said that the Reverend would offer us a bed for the night to recuperate."

Perhaps it was the combination of Scarlett's strange attire, the Doctor's handsome-ness, the imagined Admiral and the fact that these were children of a God-fearing Reverend, but the Bronte's agreed to take the travellers to the parsonage. As the siblings forged the way across the hills, the Doctor muttered to Scarlett.

"So, a Bronte fan I take it?"

"_Jane Eyre_ and _Wuthering Heights_ are my favourite books. Well, except Harry Potter." She replied quietly. "Good story, by the way. I've always fancied having a tutor."

"I'm glad. Now, we can stay one night, just one, and then I'll take you back." He waved away her whispered protests. "I have too, I can take you back exactly where we left off, or maybe just after double maths if you ask nicely." She smiled sarcastically. "Now, my name's John Smith, but you'll have to call me Sir."

"Do people really believe that? It's shockingly uninventive, _Sir_. "

"Your teachers must really love you, you know."

***

"Don't you look lovely." The Doctor leaned against the dry stone wall with his arms folded, smiling slightly at Scarlett's changed appearance. Once they had got to the parsonage, the Doctor had repeated his tale to Mr. Bronte, and they had been welcomed with warmth, if a little vagueness. Aunt Branwell was obviously the children's primary carer, and had treated The Doctor in particular with more hesitation. They had been shown rooms for the night, Scarlett in a state of ecstasy at the idea of sleeping in the same room as her heroine. They were now waiting for dinner, and the pair had managed to slip outside to talk.

"Why thankyou," she twirled in her black velvet dress, smiling as if somebody had just given her a present. "It's Charlotte's. She said it was her mourning dress, and I was a bit worried about wearing it but...." She stopped twirling and faced the Doctor. "I'm wearing the dress of my favourite author. You have no idea what this is doing to me, it's incredible. How incredible was it we met, and we came here? It's as if it called us or something."

"That's what I'm worried about." He took his Sonic Screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and showed it her, twirling it in his long fingers. "This is a Sonic Screwdriver, it detects alien energy, things that don't belong on the planet or time-period. I did a quick scan, just for routines sake, and there's something here."

Scarlett ran a hand along the metal device. "Come to think of it, I did see something odd...."

"Yes, what? What did it look like?"

"A girl from 2009 dressed in a school uniform and an alien in Converse. Of course there's something odd!" She laughed, but The Doctor still looked concerned.

"I think there's something else, keep an eye out for anything that looks...." But that was a silly thing to say. This girl wasn't Rose, who could tell exactly when something wasn't right; she wasn't Martha, who was clever enough to deduct alien activity, or even Donna, who simply just seemed to attract trouble. She was just a little girl who had sneaked into somewhere she shouldn't.

"I've been invited to spend the evening with them." Scarlett announced, as if she was telling him she'd just been declared Queen of the Universe.

"What?"

"The Bronte children used to stay up really late, writing in the kitchen. Did you never hear about their juvenilia? Angria and Gondal, they made up their own kingdoms." She stopped and looked shyly up at him, as if imparting a little bit of information that she usually kept close to her chest. "I'm a writer too. One day I want to be published, I want people to read my books and feel like somebody has written about a private piece of themselves that they thought no-one else knew about. That's what I get when I read books, really special ones, I just want to make someone to feel like that."

The Doctor watched her face as she spoke, and saw a secret little part of her that made her vulnerable, which is exactly why she felt awkward about saying it. Some humans' hated people to see that they could be hurt, could be touched, and Scarlett appeared to be one of them. "And I'm sure one day you will, if you want to enough. Enjoy yourself this evening; you're the only person alive in your day who will have written with the Bronte's, so make sure you remember it."

"I will, _Sir_." Scarlett laughed, a nice throaty chuckle which made the Doctor smile, really smile, for the first time in weeks. "What will you do?"

"Go to bed, I expect."

"Do you sleep, then?"

He looked down at her, frowning. "Yes. Of course I sleep. Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you're an alien. None of the aliens I've ever read about sleep."

"Well then you've been reading some very silly books."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, thats another chapter done, I hope you liked it (if you didn't, please tell me why, it would be **so** helpfull.)

Now, I don't want to insult anyones intelligence but I have no idea if Americans learn about The Bronte's in school, so just in case you don't, here's a quick biography of them:

Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte and Branwell Bronte lived in Hawarth, Yorkshire, England in the Victorian times. Their mother died when they were all very little children and their two older sisters both died whilst they were away at school. They all loved to write, and when they were in their twenties the three girls assumed male psuedonyms to publish their novels. Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, Villette, Shirley, and the Proffeser. Emily Bronte wrote Wuthuring Heights and Anne Bronte wrote Agnes Gray and the Tennant of Wildfell Hall. There brother Branwell became an opium addict and died quite young, breaking his sisters hearts.  
If you've never read any of their work, I would really reccommend it, it's amazing.  
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me!


	3. Is that an Insult or a Compliment?

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Doctor Who. (Shocking, isn't it?)  
Thankyouthankyouthankyou all you wonderfull people who faveourited this story and added it your alerts and reveiwed. It means such a lot to me, and gives me the confidence to keep writing. =] Snow'sLuckyCat BellsAndRoses novacancymind txgirl , thankyou.  
Right, well, it's time for Chapter 3....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scarlett lay in bed that night, fizzing with energy. It didn't matter that the bed was lumpy, the blanket ineffectual and her bed partner (none other than Charlotte Bronte herself) had cold feet, for she had just read passages from Angria and Gondal, about the Little Men, the toy soldiers that the children had created lives for. The work was obviously written by the young Bronte's, as the hand was childish and at times tedious, but now and then lines and phrases had jumped off the page to her, and she had seen the genius that would come to write 7 best-selling novels. Scarlett was having considerable trouble understanding this was true, and she would not wake up tomorrow with coursework due in and a headache from dreaming too deeply. She wanted to scream because she was the only person alive who had read that and she wanted to cry because tomorrow she would be lying in her own bed, with nothing like this to look forward to again.

Scarlett rolled over to stare at the young author. She had dark brown hair very similar to her own, (although it was thin whereas Scarlett's was thick) her eyes were blue and she was slim and neat with clear skin. It was true she was no beauty, but there was something interesting about her, and the look of rapture that graced her face when she wrote or spoke to her brother of Angria transformed her. Scarlett could see why she would lose her sight in the future, the words she wrote were so small, and the candlelight so weak that her own eyes ached. Perhaps they were playing tricks on her, for she was sure she had just seen a strange light hovering just above Charlotte's face. There it was again, glowing and pearlescent. Scarlett blinked, and it was gone, and she was just about to dismiss it as imagining when Charlotte's eyes glowed like the light had. Her mouth opened and a substance like coloured air swirled from her lips.

Scarlett jumped back in fear and alarm. She edged out of the bed and fled from the chamber, running straight through the door of the room which had been allocated to the Doctor, too frightened to think of knocking. He was asleep, the candle snuffed out and the windows open.

"Doctor," she whimpered. "Doctor please wake up, I'm really, really scared. Please!" She shook his arm warily.

Out of the blue he sat straight upright. "_Rose_...." He sighed, as if dreaming, and Scarlett thought that perhaps he was, as a second later he was shaking himself and staring at her questioningly.

"Doctor, I think I saw what your cosmic corkscrew thing picked up." He saw she was shaking and immediately lit the candle and made room for her to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Here, have my jacket, you're freezing." He offered it to her, and she draped it round her shoulders, stoking the satin lining with her thumb. "And it's a sonic screwdriver, not a cosmic corkscrew."

"Whatever. How are you so damn skinny? I couldn't fit into this if I starved myself for a month. Thankyou, though."

The Doctor felt like someone had kicked him. That could have been Donna, Donna on her wedding day. "What did you see?"

"I was just lying there, and I thought I saw something in the air, like a light beam from one of those silly little laser pens. Then it went, and came back just above Charlotte's face. I looked away for just a second, not even that, and then it went into her eyes, and they were glowing from... from the _inside._" She shivered again. "And then all this, smoke-y stuff came trailing out of her mouth as she breathed. It was horrible. Doctor, I'm scared."

Of course she was scared. She was a 15 year old girl for goodness sake, he shouldn't have brought her here, and he should have taken her back home right at the beginning. He should do it right now; he _could_ do it right now, except..... except she had dreamed about Harry Saxon. Except now he felt a duty to history to make sure that nothing untoward was happening to the Bronte's. If she asked to go home, The Doctor decided, he would take her at once.

"We have to stay; we have to find out what's going on." Scarlett said firmly, her face resolute. "What if something really terrible happens to them, and they never write their books? It could be like the butterfly effect couldn't it, I mean, if they don't write these books Britain might not win the war, or I might not be born or JFK might never have been able to stop the USSR from attacking America and the world might have ended, you just don't know!" Her voice was high-pitched and she was talking very fast, nodding with her green eyes wide, and The Doctor could see what she had looked like as a 5-year-old. "So we have to stay, don't we?"

So, she hadn't asked to go home. That cleared that one up. "Yes. We have to stay."

"And I can sleep in this room tonight, can't I? I don't mind sleeping on the floor but I'm not going back in there, it might get me too." Scarlett turned a pleading gaze on him, and his resolve weakened.

"Do you not think the_ Parson_ might think it slightly strange that we slept in the same room?"

"Tell him I have nightmares and didn't want to trouble his daughter. That's true, anyway. I do have nightmares. Please?"

The Doctor sighed gustily. "Stay. Of course you can stay. But, I'll take the floor; the woman should have the bed."

"Chauvinist." She shot, but took the bed gratefully, although she insisted he have both the pillow and blanket, borrowing his jacket for a cushion and coat for her cover. "They smell like books." She murmured sleepily, burrowing into the mattress.

"Is that a compliment or an insult?" He chuckled.

"I like books, so it's a compliment. They smell like paper, and imagi- imagi- "She yawned widely. "Imagination and adventure. Perhaps you're just a book, and I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all have been a dream. What a crap ending that would be."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well Done if you have made it thus far! I salute you.

As always, I beg you to review if you have enjoyed it, but also if you haven't. I really enjoy hearing your feedback. =]


	4. Like a Curse in a Fairy Story

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Doctor Who. Although I do have my own sonic screwdriver (albeit of the plastic variety.)  
As always, an endless thankyou to the people who have read and alerted and faveourited and REVIEWED this story, your support makes it worthwhile. I really hope I can carry on writing things you enjoy.

Chapter 4....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Doctor was an early riser, and so when he awoke had ample time to lie on the floor and mull over what Scarlett had told him. He had a hunch about what the strange light could mean, but he really hoped he was wrong. Unfortunately, he very rarely was.

This was good, this was great in fact. He had something to focus on, something to solve, to fix. He hadn't thought about Rose for a good........ 4 minutes. He was improving. The Doctor hummed, he cleaned some dirt from under his nails. He blew the dust off the surrounding floorboards. He watched Scarlett sleep for a while, and then watched the sheep out the window do the same. He tied his shoelaces, untied them, swapped them from one shoe to the other then laced them up again. 7 minutes. That was a long time not to think about her, if he hadn't spent all his time thinking about her.

He had not expected to be cut off so completely. He had thought that his 'Other Self' would still be, in some sense, connected to him, and he had thought he would have received flashes of_ his_ life, of _his_ emotions. Perhaps that was pathetic, that he'd hoped the only kick of happiness he would get would be stolen moments from another man's life.

The Doctor knew it was better this way, better to not have torturous flashes of what might have been, better for him and better for them. A good clean break was supposed to be less traumatic, like a clean cut which was supposed to heal faster. But he missed her. He wanted her and he needed her, like lifeblood which seemed to be slowly seeping out of him. The wound which had been staunched by Martha, and which Donna had helped to scab over had been re-opened, and it was hurting more than ever.

_Block it out, _The Doctor told himself. _Stop thinking, stop it NOW! _

A walk. A walk would help, out in fresh air.

***

When Scarlett woke up she had tears on her cheeks, making them sticky and stiff. Her dream had not been scary, but very sad. She had dreamed of a woman on a beach. It was obviously cold; the wind was blowing her blonde hair across her face, and the sea was as stormy as the sky. The young woman could have been very pretty if she hadn't been crying as if her heart was breaking, and all Scarlett could hear her saying was 'I love you'. It had left her with an uncomfortable empty feeling in her chest, one which she usually associated with prolonged sobbing.

"How sad," she whispered, thinking of the broken hearted blonde and wiping away her tears. Then she thought of the strange occurrences of last night, and felt glad that she had the Doctor's coat with her, containing that solar spanner thing that seemed to be like a wand. Scarlett was afraid that the thing she'd seen was dangerous but her fear of returning home beat the other fear over the head, and so she would stay, whether The Doctor would want her to or not.

Now, there was a mystery. He had a story, of course he did, and an interesting one. She had noticed how he clammed up when she asked him about his planet. She had seen his loneliness and the grief in him the moment she had seen him in the cafe, and she wanted to know why he was in such pain. It would be a woman, Scarlett knew because it always was, but also because she'd smelled the ghost of perfume in the TARDIS, and she'd seen a pink lip-gloss which had rolled under the controls. Her mother had always said she was too nosy for her own good.

For a moment Scarlett sat in bed, wondering where The Doctor was, whether it was safe to wash and change without The Doctor (or anybody else) walking in on her, what breakfast was and, because she was not quite out of her old mindset, whether her Merchant of Venice Coursework had got good marks.

She gave it a good five minutes, thinking that perhaps that was enough to make sure no-one would burst in on her, and then began to use the jug and bowl of hot water to wash herself. Half way through, she heard the creaking of a door.

"KNOCK!!!" She screamed clutching a petticoat around her torso.

"I saw nothing!" The Doctor exclaimed his eyes so tightly shut they were mere slits in his head. "You were facing away from me. I saw your back! That's all!" He was obviously horrified, and Scarlett had had not the heart to be so angry at him when it did seem highly unlikely he had seen anything.

"Just go." She muttered, her face so red she suspected that you could have boiled a kettle on it. It might even surpass the time she had tripped over a bin in the presence of her incredibly good-looking history teacher. He retreated, leaving her to deal with her humiliation in private. Perhaps she would have to walk in on him washing, just too even score, of course.

***

"Eggs and bacon, I love a good fry-up me, can't beat one on a.... what day is it? Tuesday, ah Tuesday, aren't Tuesday's strange, neither the start, nor the end, nor the middle really..." Everybody stared at The Doctor has he walked into the kitchen in his shirt, tie and trousers, windswept and pink from the shrewd air. "I've been walking, isn't it bracing out there? Blows the cobwebs away doesn't it?" He grinned at them, cutting a piece of bacon haphazardly and chewing enthusiastically.

Scarlett suppressed a laugh, gazing at his gloriously untamed hair, which she thought she might just find a reason to run her hands through before this was over.

"I like the moors." Emily Bronte volunteered, her eyes immediately downcast the moment the Doctor looked at her. A blush crept over her prominent cheekbones at her boldness of speaking to their mysterious houseguest.

The Doctor smiled at her charmingly, catching her eye and holding it, and although the blush deepened she smiled very prettily. Scarlett looked at the young author, and tried to fit _Wuthering Heights_ to the meek teenager in front of her. The book was wild and beautiful, and utterly void of moral judgement, and Scarlett couldn't imagine someone she would least expect to write it. However, she knew that wishful thinking could produce the most interesting results, and the best things that she had ever written were about the people she wished she were.

"You did not sleep in my bed last night, were you ill?" Charlotte enquired, facing Scarlett.

"I have bad nightmares, I did not wish to disturb you and my poor tutor has put up with me long enough to know how to deal with them."

"Have you always suffered, or is it something that developed after something bad happened to you?" It was the first time Branwell had spoken directly to Scarlett, and she was shocked by the frank curiosity of it.

"Branwell!" Aunt Branwell seemed to share Scarlett's views. "Miss Redmond is our guest and we will not ask such impertinent questions."

He made a face. "I only wished to know because of mine after-"

"Yes Branwell. Apologise". Aunt Branwell gave her nephew a sharp and silencing look, and it was Scarlett's turn to be curious.

"It's all right." Scarlett looked back at the brooding boy, whose dark shock of hair had fallen back into his face, and he brushed it away angrily. "No. I have always had them, like a curse in a fairy story my Father says."

"_I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." _Mr. Bronte said, smiling vaguely but well-meaningly at Scarlett.

"Mr. Shakespeare never wrote a truer word, Sir." She smiled at her host, and he seemed impressed.

"You have taught her well Mr. Smith. I believe it is very important for girls to be given a good education. I have sent all my daughters to school." A shadow crossed his lined face. "Sadly, my choice was not wise and two did not return."

"Literature is the most important thing you can teach, in my philosophy. It's far more useful to see how others interpret their world than to hear the physicality's of it. And there truly are some magnificent interpretations out there, for genius can grow in the most unlikely gardens." 'Mr. Smith' said enthusiastically, and Scarlett did not miss the significant look he gave the three girls opposite them.

***

"So," Scarlett leaned conspiratorially closer to The Doctor, just after breakfast. "What are we going to do about Project Aqua?"

"_What's _Project Aqua?"

"You know, the weird blue light invading Charlotte Bronte world ending thing? I thought I should name it, you know, and then we can talk about it and people won't know its a-l-i-e-n-s."

"They write the most celebrated books of the Victorian Age, I think they'll know if we spell out aliens. Anyway, why do we need a project name?" The Doctor saw Scarlett blush. "It's those books of yours isn't it? You might know Shakespeare but you've got some trash there as well."

"Hey! I'm allowed trash, I'm only human! Most girls my age read the problem pages of_ Bliss, _and nought else." Scarlett laughed, and saw it was The Doctor's turn to pull embarrassedly at his collar. "Did The Doctor have a bad experience with the problem pages?" She taunted.

"No." Even though he had, having once made the mistake of looking over Rose's shoulder and finding out _far_ much more than he'd ever wanted to know about female humans.

It took Scarlett a while to stop laughing, but when she did, she turned back to her 'Secret Agent' mode. "So, any leads?"

"Yes. I think it might be a Rotamador. It's like a thief, or a plagiarist. It's drawn to brains full of flair and imagination, because it has none. No Flair. No Imagination. It's life is numbers and statistics."

"It sounds like my maths teacher."

"It's jealous of words. It steals them, it steals words and phrases and ideas and _books_." He stressed books, making his mouth move exaggeratedly.

Scarlett frowned, then gasped and stared at The Doctor with horror etched into her pale face. "How do we stop them?"

The Doctor looked at her, and suddenly he had a tiredness in his eyes which made Scarlett's heart ache. "You need to write them out of you."

"What does she have to write?"

"Numbers. It's a sequence of numbers. It sends them spinning out of control and kind of locks them into themselves, locks them into the numbers." He massaged his forehead. "I'll have to think of a way to get her to do it. Until then, just make sure she doesn't start acting oddly, I think it will take a few days to start working properly, but when it does the results could be catastrophic." He looked exhausted, and his whole demeanour was rank with sadness. Something was resting on his narrow shoulders, becoming heavier and heavier until it seemed he would break with the weight of the unresolved grief.

Scarlett looked at the lines around his eyes. They were not unattractive, they added to his ambience, and his general deliciousness in Scarlett's opinion. However, there were some people, like her own father, who gained lines like this from laughter and smiles, but she could see that for as many times as the Doctor grinned, his face had been twisted in agony twice as often. She wished that she could reach out to comfort him in some way, but she could tell that it was not her fingers he wanted to feel on his arm, and that whoever he so plainly longed for was far out of reach.

***

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well Done for reaching the end, as always I give you a clap and a plate of eggs and bacon!

As you know, your comments mean the world to me, and give me the encouragement to continue, but I also would love to know ways of improving and making my writing better. Thankyou!


	5. Too Much Cheap Champagne

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Doctor Who.  
As always, a HUMOUNGOUS thankyou to all you wonderfull readers and reviewers. Especial thankyou's to reviewers James Birdsong, BellsAndRoses, SpaceHead3, novacancymind for your support. I'm so pleased to hear that you're enjoying it and youwant to carry on reading. YOU make MY day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The four Bronte children and Scarlett were lying in a spoke-and-wheel pattern on the largest bed in the house. Outside rain was lashing against the windows and inside the room had a slight smell of lingering damp. They had spent the morning; 'filthy' is what Mr. Redmond would have called it, playing a strange game of the Bronte's own invention. It was a cross between 'truth' and the pastime of Chance, and they called it Maria. When asked why, Emily replied that their sister, Maria, had invented it before she died.

So far, Scarlett had had to admit to her most scandalous act (kissing Oliver Fields, somebody else's boyfriend, at a friend's party after drinking too much cheap champagne), told them her wildest dream (to be published) and lost the chance part of the game to Branwell, who had been unnervingly accurate at guessing things about her.

"Scarlett? Where did you come from? You speak so frankly of your life, you cannot possibly be given so much freedom as to kiss boys before you court, and how can you even dream of being published under your own title?" Charlotte asked curiously, her eyes longing. "Wherever you live I think it is the place for me."

Scarlett swallowed tentatively. "There will be a time, I promise you, when women will be published and be allowed to be intelligent, beautiful women and mothers. Soon, women are anything they want to be. You've just got to believe me."

"How can you speak of such things? There is no place for girls like us in society. Perhaps, if you are as rich as is to be expected the daughter of an Admiral must be, you may secure a husband who will indulge you, but for us it is hopeless." Emily, painfully shy little Emily, sounded almost angry. "I may wish to be wild and wilful and exciting and beautiful, but I am not and I never shall be. Neither have I the courage to change my station, I can only dream of people who can. It is silly to speak of such nonsense."

Scarlett turned her head to the left to look at Emily. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were flashing with defiance, and for the first time she could see _Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte._ "Cathy...." she whispered.

"Sorry? Did you just call me Cathy?" Emily looked confused.

"Mmmm, yes, I did, because you looked like my friend, Cathy Earnshaw."

"Cathy Earnshaw." Emily repeated, as if trying something for size in her head. "That's a lovely name, you know. Like something from a book."

Scarlett tried to keep the smile from her face.

"Will it be all right with you if my family and I go out this afternoon?" Charlotte asked politely. It's just, that with my Father as the Parson, he is expected to visit members of Haworth and we always go with him, so you and your tutor will be alone."

"No, that's fine. I think we will leave tomorrow, so we will not intrude on you any longer."

"I wish you wouldn't. You and Mr. Smith are the most interesting things to cross the doormat since Mama died." Branwell said, making her feel very uncomfortable. She felt an awful sense of foreboding when she looked at Branwell, as she knew that he would be a slave to opium in another 10 years, smoking away his genius and devastating his sisters, especially the girl to her right with whom he shared his words.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Short, I know, and more of a filler chapter to give a bit of Bronte background for nerds like me =]  
I hope you enjoyed it, the next one will be L.O.N.G!  
As always, reveiw if you hav the time, it makes me so happy!

Happy Reading!


	6. I Fell in Love with Her

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Doctor Who. But I am getting bored of writing this.

Your support and reads and reveiws mean so much to me, and I'm so pleased to hear you're liking reading this as much as I liked to write it. You guys are all pretty wonderfull. A hundread thousand smiles for you.

I'm updating rather quickly today to make up for the gap between the last one and the (pathetically) short last chapter. I hope this makes up for it. This has been the Chapter I've been most nervous about posting, this one and the next one, so I really hope I've done justice to all your faith in me. *Crosses fingers*

Enjoy (I hope) ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In an old armchair by an open window, The Doctor was falling deeper and deeper into his misery. He was asleep, but in his dreams he kept seeing flashes of red hair or Rose's smile. He was forced to watch the bittersweet ache of the last time in the TARDIS, where they had all been together. At the time The Doctor had had the feeling of a small child at their birthday party, where you are unable to completely enjoy the moment because you know that any moment everyone is going to get up and leave you. He began to shudder when he was back on Bad Wolf Bay, as the dream forced him to live through the torturous moment when he couldn't tell Rose the one thing she wanted to hear. The one thing he wanted to tell her more than anything.

He woke up feeling like he needed to run. He was out on the moors before he collapsed under the weight of the rainwater seeping into his clothes and the pain of his broken hearts. He lay on the ground, surrounded by the dead heather under the swollen sky, rain soaking his very bones until the cold felt warm and he could no longer feel anything. He lay there until he could no longer tell whether it was tears or rain racing each other into his ears. He lay there until he couldn't remember that this was why he couldn't look back, he just couldn't because if he did, his trail of destruction would cripple him.

He lay there until he forgot he was The Doctor, the man who never stopped running, finally floored by 900 years of loneliness.

***

Somewhere along the line Scarlett had become scared of emotion. The sight of her mother sobbing made her skin crawl and forced her to withdraw to her room through sheer terror. Conversations with friends that involved talking about their feelings left her standing half in shadow with her arms crossed protectively across her chest, trying to hold herself in. She was even frightened of herself. If someone would have asked her when this happened, or even why, she couldn't say, she only knew that she had begun to avoid situations that put her in an awkward position. This was why, when she found The Doctor half-drowned, she was surprised to find she was neither frightened nor awkward, she only felt the need to protect him.

Once she had got him into the house, she sat him down in one of the chairs in the kitchen, glad for the fire. She took his shoes and socks off, brought down a blanket for him and pushed him closer to the blaze, thinking that chilblains were preferable to pneumonia. He hadn't spoken or looked at her, he only sat and shivered, his eyes staring into the flames.

Scarlett stood looking at him, bouncing from one foot to the other, biting her lip, and the only thing that came to her mind to say was; "would you like me to make you a cup of tea?"

***

They were sat at right angles to each other on the wooden table, a teapot, plate of biscuits and doorstep slice of bread and cold ham separating them.

"I'm very old, Scarlett, older than you would ever think." His voice was low and eyes intent, hands clasped around the steaming mug. "When you've lived for over 900 years, you lose a lot of people. I travel with friends, companions you could call them, and eventually I lose them all one way or another. Some of them chose to stay on a planet, some go home, and some are trapped. Some... Some have to forget. I met a girl once, she was- she is- called Rose and she was-is- wonderful. She's beautiful and funny and I..." He stopped and took a moment to collect himself, breathing through his teeth. "I fell in love with her. I was stupid, stupid because I can't..." His voice broke. "I can't do that. Then Canary Wharf happened-"

"I saw that on TV, I've never been so scared in my life. My school got us all in the hall and we watched it on the big screen, and everyone was crying and calling their parents. I thought we were all going to die." Scarlett motioned for him to continue.

And so he did, he told her about the parallel world and Bad Wolf Bay, he told her about Martha and about John Smith and 1913, which made Scarlett blanch with pity. He told her about Saxon, watching her face carefully when he told her of the rockets.

"Just like my dream.... Doctor I dreamed that."

"It was probably just an imprint of the wiped memory."

"It's funny, because that's not the first time I've dreamed of the future, it's happened a few times before." The Doctor looked at her strangely and she shrugged.

He told her about meeting Donna for the second time, about how the universe had brought them together, about-

"You took her to Pompeii, and she was terrified so you saved a family." Scarlett clasped her hand over her mouth in surprise and shock. "I didn't know that. I don't know how I knew that, I just, I just said it. But its right isn't it?"

The Doctor nodded dumbly, creeping sensations chasing each other up and down his spine.

"Sometimes I say things, and they end up true. Like telling the future."

He was beginning to think that there was something very odd about Scarlett Redmond. But he shook it off, and told her everything up until the moment when he had to wipe Donna's memory, and he could still hear her screams in his ears.

"You lost everyone. You lost everyone that day; they all had lives to go home too. You even left Rose happy." Scarlett took a biscuit and split it in half, offering one to him. She broke hers in two again, and chewed thoughtfully. "That was what hurt the most wasn't it? Before, if you were alone, you would always be able to think that she was alone too, but now she has you. But you don't have her." She watched him dip the shortbread into his tea, and winced as she watched the biscuit crumble into his drink. "You'll have soggy bits in the bottom now."

"I know. I always do." The Doctor smiled wearily. "900 years and I still haven't learned my lesson." He took a sip, and his face suddenly crumpled, like a piece of waste paper thrown carelessly away. "I still haven't learned my lesson." And they weren't talking about tea anymore. Scarlett watched the man in front of her crumble, his jaw clenched tightly as he tried not to cry. She was watching him fall apart at his very well-tailored seams. She wanted to try to save him, but her old fear was kicking in, and she almost couldn't bring herself to bridge the small gap across the table, which suddenly felt like the Grand Canyon. Almost. All of a sudden she felt herself push back her chair and throw her arms around his thin frame, felt him rest his head on the shoulder of a girl he barely knew, felt the tears slide down his face, making her neck damp. Scarlett had always held the very firm belief that men should not cry, as they never do it in the right way. They always made themselves look slightly feminine, like Jude Law at the end of _The Holiday_.

She had never seen The Doctor cry.

She rubbed little circles on his back, muttering soothing words as her mother had done when she was a little girl. When he had finished she was crying too, for women she had never met and places she had never seen, and for the man in front of her who had the weight of a thousand worlds on his shoulders and no-one with whom to ease the burden. He lifted up his head and hugged her back, his jaw knocking against her cheek, and she could feel an almost imperceptible layer of stubble on his face.

He drew back from her, his eyes tired but clean. Some of the grief had left them, and he squeezed her hand to show his gratitude.

"You're not The Destroyer of Worlds." She squeezed back. "No matter what that thing called you, you're not."

The Doctor recoiled, a look of horror on his face. "How did you know that?"

"Know what?"

"How did you know that's what Davros named me?"

"You told me, I guess."

"No I didn't." The Doctor scraped his chair across the flagstones and pointed at Scarlett, who was looking confused and slightly worried. "No I didn't, I purposefully didn't tell you that. You said that all by yourself. Just like you knew about Pompeii and Saxon and..... And how you got into the TARDIS that day." He drew closer to her and squatted on his haunches. "I locked that door, but you got in. It let you in. How?" His mood had snapped back into his quick mind faster than Scarlett could quite follow, leaving her reeling in its wake.

"I don't know! I don't know how I knew that stuff. Sometimes it happens to me, I dream stuff, I told you! I told you, I dreamed about Saxon, and the TARDIS was open. I swear it!" By this point she was scared, really scared, but so was The Doctor. He paced, rubbing his jaw pensively, murmuring to himself.

"Yes. Yes, it's the only way." He stopped his wandering and nodded decisively, clearly "I think I have to read your mind."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DunDunDUUUUNNN!!!!!!

Well, I hope that's what you're thinking now. You should be if I've done my job right. If I have, please tell me if you have the time. YOU make my DAY. Also, if you haven't enjoyed and are thinking "what the hell, why did she post that? It's terrible!" Please tell me why. This is how I learn.

Happy Reading!

x


	7. The PinBadge of Youth

**DISCLAIMER: **I still don't own Doctor Who. Although, it is my birthday in a few weeks...  
As always, all my thanks goes to your wonderfull reveiws on my last chapter. I was SO, unbeleivably glad to hear you liked it, and I cannot stress enough how much your reveiws mean to me. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!  
Secondly, an apology, I haven't updated in a few days even though I was plannng to try and publish a new chapter at least every other night. Even though I had this written, I could NOT get this chapter how I wanted it. To me, it just doesn't ring true. Anyway, that's not your concern. I'm just making my excuses.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She stared at him, shocked, scared, angry, wondering which emotion would reign supreme. It turned out her fear was all encompassing, making the little blood in her face drain it and her voice raise an octave. "Oh! So you can do that as well can you, marvellous! I should have guessed it! Now you're going to see what a freak I really am!" She was slightly hysterical, and The Doctor swallowed nervously. "Come on, then!" She cried. "What are you waiting for!"

"Please, Scarlett. I think this is really important."

She shrugged, her jaw stuck out defiantly. "Ok. Don't ever let anyone say Scarlett Redmond's a coward." He put his fingers to her temples, and she shrank away from him, almost by a reflex.

"Please, trust me. I won't hurt you, I won't see anything you don't want me too. I just need to understand why you came to me, how you got into the TARDIS, how you know the things you know." She opened her eyes and looked into his brown ones, wavering. "I promise I won't hurt you. Just trust me."

"I do. I trust you." She nodded, never having been so sure of anything in her life, and told him to do it, keeping her hands on his torso for comfort.

And then, he was inside her mind, and he could see everything. Every time she had blinked back tears in class because her grade wasn't quite good enough. Every time she'd looked in the mirror and wished she were thinner, taller, had straighter hair. Every horrible, terrible, frightening nightmare that had ever haunted her. He saw her watching her parents arguing, heard her Mother crying for reasons she didn't understand, didn't want too. He could feel her fear that she was completely different from other people, that she couldn't make the same connections as they could. He could see her terror that inside she was just average, and she would never stand out, never be noticed, never be remembered. He became numbed in the same way she had become, bored into a state of walking sleep, so, even though she was crying out for something, anything to care about, she was unnoticed. He felt a loneliness so crippling he fought the urge to pull himself out of such a confused mind, filled with its extremes of happiness and pain, togetherness and distance.

And then he saw her dreams.

He emerged back in the Bronte's kitchen, gasping. "Your dreams! You dreamt of me." He was reeling.

"I didn't, I'd remember!" She was scared by his intensity, drawing back.

"No no no! You wouldn't; humans don't remember their dreams, its part of their bio-complex, but you, you store them!" He raked his hand through his hair, jumping like a madman, his mouth becoming larger, his words more pronounced and fast. "You've dreamt of me, and of Rose, and Sarah-Jane and Jack and Martha and Donna and everybody. You know everything! Why, what's told you! Why you, your just a school girl-"

"Hey!"

"A very complicated school girl, granted. Very different, very separate at times. You're a crucible of feelings, of course you are; you're a writer, a teenage writer! You-"He stopped, staring at her, eyes wide and mouth slack.

"What? Doctor, what is it? What am I?" She was alarmed.

"The TARDIS." He spoke with a low voice, suddenly very sure of himself. "The TARDIS has been feeding you information, all this time. And then, she took me to your town, to a cafe where you're outside. She helps you find her, she opens the door to you and she takes us here. Here to where your favourite authors live. One of which is being attacked by an alien. What a coincidence, I don't think."

"What?"

"Okay, Okay." He sat back down next to her, forcing himself to think slower so he could explain it to her. "You know jigsaw puzzles," she nodded. "Well, imagine that part of your mind is a jigsaw puzzle, and the TARDIS has been giving you tiny bits of the puzzle ever since you were born. Now, slowly, without you knowing, you've been fitting the little bits of puzzle together, until, on that day we met, the final bit fitted in, and suddenly you had the whole picture. Do you understand?"

"I think so." She tapped her teeth quizzically. "Right. You're saying that the TARDIS has led me here, to you, to it, on that day?"

"Yes. And it's 'she' not 'it'."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "Bigger. Picture. Please."

He nodded. "Sorry, sorry. Please continue."

"Why me? Why does the TARDIS feed this stuff to me? Why did it – sorry she – want me to meet you? I'm nothing special, not a Rose or a Martha or a Donna. I'm just a Scarlett Redmond." She picked at her cuticles. "I'm a nothing."

A look of realisation tinged with pity spread across his face. "Oh, oh you're not a nothing. You're not anything like the person you think you are. You humans, you always think you're so unimportant, but you're really wonderful, why can't you ever see it in yourselves?"

"Because it's not true! You don't know how it feels to be on a planet full of people who are exactly the same as you. To be at school with 800 other kids who are all more interesting or more special or just better than you. I have to be perfect. I have to be clever, I have to be beautiful, I have to be vivacious and everyone has to like me and I can never, ever, show that I'm breaking under the weight of it all." There were tears in her eyes and her voice, glistening and heavy. "Every morning I wake up and I realise that I've been around for well over a decade and I've done nothing that has left an imprint on anyone, and I probably never will. I get scared sometimes, you wouldn't even believe how scared, that one day I'll just fall into some kind of walking coma during my unbelievably dull routine, and no-one will notice."

"Scarlett..."

She shook her head, stifled a little gasp-sob and continued. "You don't know how that feels do you Doctor? Because you're a Timelord, and you are terrifying and wonderful and so, so alive, and I'm so, so not. I've been fading for a while. If you weren't around the whole universe would explode, 'cuz you're the most important man ever, and I'm nothing, I'm negligible, without me people would still be the same. I wouldn't recommend humanity to you Doctor, because it's desolate." Angrily she wiped a tear that had fallen from her eyes, and looked at her lap.

He stared at her, their previous roles reversed. He looked at this little girl who could feel so much and think so hard it scared her. He reached out with his words to comfort her, to reassure her she wasn't a nothing. She was a human. "Oh, Scarlett. You're going to be so much more than what you think, you're going to do so much more and inspire so many people and you will leave an imprint on the world, I promise you."

His voice was so earnest and his eyes so intense as he said this to her, she almost believed it. She was breathless with longing for the truth only he could know and with fear that he was lying. "Really?"

Hope vibrates. Not many people know that, but The Doctor could feel it then; Scarlett's hope – the pin-badge of youth – shook through the space between them. The question hung in the air in the same way it had when he had told of time travel.

"Scarlett Redmond! I'm a time traveller, I've seen the future." She opened her mouth but he silenced her by holding up his hand, giving an enigmatic smile. "I can't tell people their individual timelines, it would change them, but, Scarlett Redmond you leave your fingerprints all over this world."

Scarlett stared at her fingers, as if looking for the marks she would stamp on her Earth. "I do?"

He reached out and held her left hand, his long fingers in hers. "All over it," he whispered.

She took a deep shuddery breath and looked straight at him, a fierceness in her eyes that was all her own. "This doesn't count at all, I know it doesn't, but for what it's worth; you didn't deserve anything that happened to you. You didn't deserve to lose Rennette and John Smith didn't deserve to have to leave Nurse Redfern. You shouldn't have had to do what you did to Donna, and you really shouldn't have had to give up Rose. You, Doctor, you should have been allowed her, you deserved that, and from what I heard she did too." Scarlett knotted her fingers as if trying to decide whether or not to add something to her speech. "None of that should have happened, but, it all did and...... I know I've only known you for a few days but.... but I can't think of anyone else who could have done all that and still be standing. I think you're brilliant."

He didn't say anything at first, only sat and mulled her words over. Eventually he cleared his throat. "I almost lost it today. In fact, I did lose it, it had been coming for a while really. If someone had told me a week ago that a teenage girl would save me from myself, there's no way I would have believed them, but you did, you rescued me, and for that I want to thank you from my hearts." They shared a grin. "And, for what it's worth, I think you're brilliant too."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And I think YOU'RE brilliant, especially if you reveiw. =]

Hope you liked it. =] I didn't.


	8. You're Better Than a Fairytale

**DISCLAMER:** I don't own Doctor Who.

As always a MASSIVE thankyou to everyone who read the last chapter and decided to come back. I imagine we've got about 5 chapters left now (I've got it all written but I just need to divide it into chapters. This chapter is a bit of a filler, though, so I apologise in advance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They reconvened in the Doctor's room just past midnight, and when Scarlett opened the door she stood for a moment to admire the shadow she made on the whitewashed wall, all spooky and ghost-like in the candlelight. The Doctor was stood by the window, reading a book. She peered to inspect the cover, and was surprised to find it was one of her own favourites.

"The Book Thief! I love that book, the writing is so incredible, I've barely ever cried so much in my life then at the end, when Hans and Rudy......" She trailed off, staring into words passed.

"And Liesel finds him and...." They stared at each other with the same shiny look in their eyes.

"God, it's nice to talk a fellow reader, none of my friends are that bookworm-ish. I expect your friends are all the really intellectual types, though."

The Doctor snorted good-naturedly. "Donna wasn't really the reading type, unless it was TV Quick, and Rose was..... sketchy on literature."

She laughed and sat down on the bed, pulling the blanket up around her chin.

"Oh, so this is how it's going to be is it? I see you're one of those cover-hogs." He laughed, more at ease than Scarlett had seen him so far.

"Yes, that's exactly how it's going to be; I expect Rose split the duvet evenly, did she?" As soon as she'd said it she wondered if it was too much too soon, felt her heart jump to her throat as she waited for his reaction.

There was perhaps a half-moment of tension, the second before the intake of surprised breath, the wind in the sails, finished by the smile that sloped across his face. He raised an eyebrow mischievously. "I wouldn't know."

"Come off it, you're not telling me....." She left the sentence hanging, her meaning all too clear.

"How old are you?" He exclaimed, scratching his neck, thrown off his confident stride. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, falling back on the bed and sighing longingly. "That makes it all the more romantic. You're better than a fairytale. I wish I had a Doctor."

"You're far too young for a Doctor, but in a couple of years I'll send Captain Jack your way, he'd like you." He winked at her, but of course she had no idea who he was talking about. "Right, now, to business. I think it has to be you."

"What has to be me?"

"I think the TARDIS wants it to be you who gets rid of the Rotalucep, I think it has to be you."

"Ok," she nodded excitedly. "How do I have to do it?"

"This is where it get complicated, and a little bit, uncomfortable. You have to absorb it, and have it in your mind like Charlotte's had it in hers."

"Well, that's okay, she's had it for days and not even realised it, it won't be that bad. Will it?"

"Ahhh, well, the transferring of it will change things a bit; it's going to get angry, and it's going to speed up the process of stealing, so it may get a little strange, perhaps even a bit.... sore."

"How sore?"

"Nothing like re-writing your biological cells."

"Oh I am relieved." She muttered. "Allright, I'll do it, I think I'll have to. When?"

"Tomorrow night. We'll do it downstairs, you'll need to transfer it round from her to you somehow, I'll work that bit out. Then I'll have to tell you what to write and you'll have to really, really concentrate because it's going to try and distract you, and then you'll be confused by the pain and- "

"Don't tell me anymore!" Scarlett held up her hand. "I might not do it if you say anything else. If I am going to do this for you, then you're going to answer a few of my questions." He nodded. "Why did the TARDIS choose me, was it chance, or is my Mother part of some crazy secret society who put their children up for this or what?"

"I don't know. Well, I can assure you you're not part of a secret society." Scarlett looked slightly disappointed, and the Doctor smiled. "All I can tell you is that you're... different. I once met a boy a bit like you, in 1913, and he was different too. Not in the same way you are but, there was a... he saw things differently to other people. And you do too. Something of mine found its way to him as well, so I think the TARDIS sensed you, sensed you when you were born and brought me to you now."

"Why now?"

The Doctor gave her a measuring stare. "You tell me."

She thought for a moment, pausing to examine herself a little deeper than she would have liked. "I think I'd gotten scared. I'd become really terrified of, of feeling anything, I wanted to be untouchable. I didn't want anyone to touch me or know that I could be hurt. People and their emotions had begun to terrify me. Human connections are so messy, too full of love and hate and envy. It's was easier just too..." She trailed off, searching for the right word.

"To take yourself out of the game." The Doctor finished for her, nodding reassuringly.

"I'd started to distance myself from everyone, I was horrible to people sometimes, so horrible I'd feel a bit sick afterwards. I just wanted to push them away. And, they couldn't understand how I was feeling. Or, they might have done, but I couldn't tell them, couldn't explain."

The Doctor smiled at her, wanting her to continue at her own pace.

She sighed and pushed her hair off her forehead. "I got really restless, I got bored of my mundane life. I googled it once, 'sustained state of chronic boredom'. Constant apathy = depression apparently, but it wasn't like depression. It was comfortable numbness." An embarrassed smile played on her lips. "I had an English Exam, a few weeks ago, and the writing section asked us to describe our dream world. Everyone wrote about birds and flowers and world peace, but I thought it meant a world in a dream, so I wrote about a dream I'd started to have loads. It starts in hall of mirrors, but I can't catch a glimpse of myself in any of them, then there are shadows and storms and Puck, but it ends in with me at the top of a madly high tower. I look over the side and there's just a chasm, a huge black drop which I can feel shouldn't exist. In my head I know I should be terrified of it, but I'm not, I just want to jump. Not because I want to fly, but because I want to fall. It's odd isn't it, but in the dream I have this draw to fall, because of the fear. Do you ever feel like that?"

"I did. Once." He remembered a long, far drop. With The Devil at the bottom. Not so different from what Scarlett was describing. Her devil, he thought, is not necessarily mine.

"Well, anyway, when my teacher read it she thought I was mad, so she recommended to my Head of House that I get an appointment with the school counsellor. I had to go and sit in her office with my form tutor, my Head of House and the counsellor and have them all look at me pityingly and ask if anything was the matter. They thought I was suicidal, that I wanted to fall to my death, and I couldn't explain that it wasn't like that, that somewhere, in the back of my mind I had this urge to fall." Scarlett pressed her lips together tightly and stopped seaming the edge of the Doctor's cuff. "I'd lost myself. Maybe the TARDIS picked that up, maybe it sent help. Maybe it sent you?"

"Maybe it saw two lonely souls that needed fixing." He suddenly made a gagging noise, sticking his tongue out. "That is something I have never said before and hopefully will never say again."

"Probably true though, even if it did make my sweet tooth ache."

"That's why I think it needs to be you, you who fixes Charlotte Bronte. This is all part of the reason we're here and now. Part of the grand plan for you."

"It's nice," she mused, "to know that someone thinks I can do something right."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment. "Doctor, I want to tell my Dad about all this. Not necessarily now, maybe in a few years time, but someday. "

"Why shouldn't you? I think it's good you want to tell someone, it helps you believe things yourself. Why don't you want to tell your mum?"

"She wouldn't trust it, she would freak out and not believe me and have me psychoanalysed, but, my Dad would. My Dad's like me. And, I thought maybe the Government is out searching for you under the Homeland Security Act or something."

"Well, the Government do have organisations searching for me. Torchwood, UNIT; they'll be giving you a call in four or five years time if they find out you know me."

"I think I'd rather you gave me a call in four or five year's time. Then I could be your permanent assistant." Scarlett had a very hopeful look in her eyes, and the Doctor didn't quite know what to say.

"Hasn't their past history put you off?" He laughed nervously, but she shook her head.

"Not a bit. The monsters and the fear and the heartbreak, it's all worth it, isn't it? Because they get you. I think the Doctor is worth the demons." And with that she pulled his coat over her and closed her eyes, leaving him to stare at her, both flattered and appalled by her comment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who noticed, I did totally rip off that line from The Girl In The Fireplace. My sincere apologies to the wonder that is Steven Moffat, but they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  
Can I also have a bit of a moment here and thank BellsAndRoses and novacancymind for their endless support and lovely, lovely, LOVELY reveiws on this story. I couldn't reply to their last reveiws for some odd, technical reason, but I want them to know that they made me so, so happy. THANKYOU.

Happy Reading!


	9. How Night Was Supposed To Be

**DISCLAIMER: **It was my Birthday yesterday, but I didn't get the rights to Doctor Who. Bummer.  
I'm very sorry I haven't updated in a few days - but, in my defence, I've had my Dad's birthday, My GCSE results (I did really well, much better than I thought I would) and MY birthday all one after the other. Terribly stressfull and exciting.  
Anyway, as always, HUGEST thankyou's to you all for r+r-ing =] You have all my kind thoughts.

Here we go.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you quite all right, Miss Redmond?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine." Scarlett and Charlotte were sat in the pantry, as arranged, waiting for the Doctor. Charlotte had been lured on the pretence of wanting a cup of tea before bed, and as the kettle took a long time to boil and Scarlett was sipping slowly, it seemed everybody else was fast asleep. "And don't call me Miss Redmond, I'm Scarlett." She tapped her nails against the teacup, fidgeting on her chair. She was, if she must admit it, quite scared of what was to come. She didn't like pain, well, no-one did, but Scarlett had a sort of phobia of it. She had gone so pale and shaky when she was just about to have her ears pierced that the woman who was shooting the gun refused to do it until Scarlett had had a fizzy drink, 'for the sugar'. She was scared of the pain, but she had no fear of the actual deed, taking a creature into her mind. She knew she was in safe hands. To try and distract herself, she stared out of the window.

"The stars!" She gasped.

"What about them?" Charlotte looked both amused and slightly confused.

"There, there so bright now, here." Scarlett gazed in wonder at the sky. Where she lived, even though it was only a small country town in the middle of the country, the stars just weren't like this. This was perfect. This was the kind of sky that children drew in pictures, but that they never really saw. This was how night was _supposed _to be.

Charlotte laughed. "You're very odd, Scarlett. The sky wouldn't be anywhere else but here and now. What strange things you and your tutor say."

"Yes." Scarlett said, still staring at the night, transfixed. "I suppose we do."

It was into that starry quiet The Doctor slipped down the stairs and into the pantry as silent as a shadow. His smile was quiet, but there was his indomitable air of self confidence that prevailed over the room. "Miss Bronte, good evening."

A dainty blush spread across her cheeks and she smiled prettily. "Good evening, Sir."

He turned to Scarlett. "Have you told her?" She shook her head.

"Told me what?"

The Doctor sat down at the table, "Charlotte, Miss Redmond and I, we need to help you with something. We think that, that something may have, may have entered your mind, so we are going to try to... get it out."

Charlotte frowned. "I don't think I understand."

"Nah, well, didn't think you would, worth a try." He leapt up, "come on, let's get started! Scarlett, take Charlotte's hands. Oh! Scarlett and Charlotte, that rhymes, ha-ha!" He was chaotic, capering across the flagstones, inexplicably excited and full of anticipation.

Scarlett swallowed. "Just do what he says, and I promise I'll explain it all after. It's for your own good you know." She took Charlotte's icy palms in her own, trying to stop herself shaking.

The Doctor turned to her. "Ready?" She looked into the eyes of the man who'd braved so much, thought of the women he'd told her of, of Rose and the Daleks, Martha and the Master, Donna and the Sontarons. They had faced these things on their own, so she could face this.

"Yes."

He looked at her, his eyes full of kindness. "Thankyou, Scarlett Redmond."

He didn't give her much time to think after that, bearing down upon the girls, a finger on each of their left temples. Then, to Scarlett, it felt as if there was a wind blowing through her mind, and icy gust that seemed to freeze all thought for a moment.

"Can you hear me?" His voice floated through to her and brought her back to what she had to do. "Okay, Scarlett, I need you to be really focussed. Think as hard as you can about the numbers I'm going to tell you. Don't think about anything else."

The ice had turned to fire, licking around her brain and branding her with all of her worst, most inadequate thoughts. _It's beginning to hurt a little bit_ was the last thing she thought before The Doctor started to recite numbers and before the 'soreness' really began.

"24678532649107043897727497546."

She thought as hard as she could, and as she reached the final '6', something screamed inside her brain, and pain exploded in every particle of her being. At some point her knees had given way and she was crouched on the floor, able to make out the shape of the Doctor hovering blurrily beside her. The screaming inside her head continued, and she fought for consciousness, fought to comprehend the Doctor.

"58369203486454839202873639229098373730."

She just managed to reach the end, no mean feat considering the screeching noise filling her ears and the terrible, crushing agony of her body. Now she couldn't even kneel, and had fallen under the pressure so she was foetal on the floor, shaking and whimpering. She no longer knew what she was doing, was sure she must be dying with it, dying curled up on a cold pantry floor, her soul leaking onto the stone.

"Just one more, one more." He put his fingers on her chin and tilted her up to look at him, even though he doubted he was more than a blur to her. Her eyes were frosted with pain, and she whimpered with fear. He was glad she could not see how scared he was; it shouldn't have been as bad as this, not half as bad as what it appeared she was going through. If he'd have known, there was no way he'd have asked her to do this. If anything happened to her... if she. _I can't lose another one;_ he thought desperately, _not another one_. "Just one more, I promise you. You've been amazing, brilliant, more than I could have asked for. Just one more." Some part of her understood, and she nodded. "5."

Scarlett thought 5 as hard as she could, thought it until it blocked anything else from her mind, thought until the piercing keening reached a splitting level, and stopped, and she thought no more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what did ya think?

I may not be able to update again for another 5 days, cuz I'm going on holiday with some friends, and will have no TYV, let alone internet access! Have a good week!


	10. A Milk and Paper Girl

**DISCLAIMER:** I Don't Own Doctor Who.

Right, I apologise, I need my sorry buttocks kicked for not updating more often. I really wanted too, but I'm going back to school this week and had a holiday last week and...  
and you probably just want me to shut up and tell the story.  
Here goes....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she opened her eyes she was aware that somebody's strong, steadying hand was pressed against her cold, clammy forehead. The bile was clinging to her throat and her chest heaved and convulsed as she took deep gasps of air. Charlotte was stood above her, pale and trembling, and, as she turned her head she realised that the hands that were supporting her skull were The Doctor's, strong and reassuring, her head and shoulders were in his lap. "Hello." She croaked, attempting a smile that looked more like a tear.

"Scarlett! Are you alright?"

"I'm.... I'm .... I'm going to be sick!" She scrambled to her feet and stumbled out into the night, the cold like a welcome shower. As she stood, doubled over, retching and sobbing, The Doctor held her hair back for her, and when she'd finished passed her a glass of water.

She stood in the moonlight, a paper doll.

"How are you?" He asked, tentatively putting his arm around her. "I'm so, so sorry. I had no idea that it would be like that. I thought it would be a lot, lot easier. I would never have asked you to do that if I had known." He was so earnest, so caring.

Scarlett sniffed and put a shaking hand to her forehead. "It hurt so much, I thought I was going to break with it. It was, it was more than me." She buried her face into his chest and cried weakly for a minute or two whilst The Doctor stroked her hair and murmured quiet, comforting words in a language she didn't understand, but they soothed her all the same, a wonderful calm and ease flooding through her as she leaned against the reassurance of his unreality. When she stopped and looked up at him, he kissed the top of her head, causing her to blush and smile.

"Thankyou." He said quietly. "You saved Charlotte Bronte. I couldn't have done better myself!" He lifted the teenager into the air and swung her round. "You, Scarlett Redmond, are brilliant!" She squealed with euphoria, and soon Charlotte had joined them, gazing at the Timelord and the schoolgirl with wonder.

"Who _are_ you?"

The Doctor set Scarlett back on her feet and smiled at the authoress. "We're friends."

***

It was time to go home. It wasn't agreed upon, wasn't discussed, but when, over breakfast, The Doctor announced to the Bronte's that it was time for them to leave, Scarlett felt no surprise, only sadness. She was putting her school uniform back on when Charlotte came into her bedroom, helping her find her blazer.

"Thankyou. I'm not sure what you and your friend did, but thankyou." Charlotte hugged her very tightly and pressed something into her palm. "This is to remember us by." It was a very delicate silver bracelet, the one that Charlotte herself had been wearing.

"Thankyou..." Scarlett breathed, and, with sudden inspiration, pushed up her sleeve to reveal her own jewellery, a beaded bracelet of silver and turquoise that her Mother had bought her from a Native American woman in Arizona. "Have this. To remember us." She helped her fasten the clasp. "Charlotte, never forget that you can do anything you want. Never forget that you have the capability to inspire thousands of people across the world, never forget that. And never let your sisters forget it."

***

"I suppose you're going to take me home." Scarlett was back in the TARDIS, looking like she was about to cry.

"I think I have to. Your 15, you have parents and friends and a school, you're only a child." He looked at her, and grinned. "But you weren't half brilliant, in fact, if you were a few years older, I wouldn't take you home if you didn't want me to."

She was grateful for that as the TARDIS flew her from the most perfect time she'd ever had back to suburbia. She was just sniffing back her tears when they landed with a bump and a rock, and she reluctantly stepped out into the sunshine. He had landed round one of the alleyways people in her neighbourhood put their wheelie bins so they didn't mar the landscape. It was a neat little spot – no-one ever went down there during the day so the TARDIS wouldn't be discovered.

"My house is just round the corner from here." She said dully, gesturing vaguely. The Doctor nodded and followed her, interested to see the place he had heard in her mind as being so terrible.

It was a very still, quiet summer's day. The sky was as blue as a forget-me-not, with one perfect powder-puff cloud. It was too perfect, too trusting. Someone had left their car window down and the radio on whilst they nipped into one of the houses, probably for a mobile phone or a forgotten laptop.

"_This is the BBC news at 4'0'Clock on the 4__th__ of July, 2008."_

"The _4__th_ of July, I'm sure it was only June when we left." Scarlett stood, frowning, chewing her lower lip in confusion.

"_It is the 6__th__ day since Warwickshire schoolgirl Scarlett Redmond went missing from her hometown. She disappeared during her school lunch break, when friends say that she told them she was going back to school, and walked along the High Street at about 2 O'clock. Scotland Yard have become involved in the case since CCTV footage of the square showed a man who is currently being called a 'person of interest' by top government organisations. Police ask anyone with any information to contact them immediately, as the girls welfare is feared for." _The BBC accent on the radio moved on to another news item, but Scarlett stood rooted to the spot, staring in horror at the car.

"Did he just say that_ I_ have been missing for _6 days? 6!!!" _She screeched at The Doctor, beginning to pace up and down. "My Mum, oh my God, my Mum, she'll be a wreck! I have to get home, I'm going to have to explain it to them, _we're_ going to have to explain it to them." She looked at The Doctor in desperation, her fear at her Mother's worry and anger and the sheer thought of having to explain her absence making her look quite ill.

"Don't worry." He soothed, patting her arm reassuringly. "Don't worry. We'll explain it to them together, no-one's going to be angry with you."

Scarlett looked up at him, irritaited. "Oh! What do you know! Once she realises I'm alive she'll murder me."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A bit bitty, I know, but it's got to the closing chapters of the story, and I needed a chapter like that. I tried different ways to make it work but, this was kinda the only way.

So, did you like it? I hope so, and I hope I'll be able to update tomorrow.

Happy Reading!


	11. The Squeak Of His Shoes

**DISCLAIMER:**I think we get the idea now.

In a tearing hurry, but keeping my promise, so I'll begin...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was an estate of detached houses, very suburban, very middle-class and very uneventful. Scarlett grabbed his arm and pulled him up to Number 8, a house with a gray 4x4 and a flurry of yellow roses outside the large window, and tentatively rang the doorbell.

The woman who answered it had a neat little bob, with a face that was pale and pinched with strain and sorrow. Her face was disbelieving, racked with fear that this was some vision, some wishful thinking in the form of her daughter. When Scarlett saw her Mother she let out a little gasp and threw her arms around her, almost flattening her with the force of it. "Scarlett! Scarlett! Oh it's you, it's really you! You've come back to me!" Tears seeped from her eyes and onto her daughter's shoulder, who was now trying to wiggle out from the vice-like grip.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph you've crushed my ribs!"

"Language!" Mrs. Redmond admonished her daughter through her tears, and then looked beyond Scarlett and saw the Doctor. "Who's this?"

"Mum, I'll explain when we're inside, but, in short, this is who I've been with." Perhaps she thought that her Mother would welcome him in with open arms after that little comment, but she was very wrong.

"He's who you've been with?" Her Mother was speaking with a very controlled, clipped voice, her lips tightly pressed together.

"Yes, that's what I just said, now let us in."

She moved away so Scarlett could pass through the door, but when The Doctor, awkward and shuffly, stood in front of the small woman, she barred his way. "Is this true?" she demanded.

"Well, yes, but-" He didn't get a chance to explain that it wasn't quite like it sounded, that he hadn't abducted her child and brought her back after a fit of goodwill, because Mrs. Redmond, like so many mothers before her, had slapped him.

"MUM!" Scarlett gasped, outraged, shocked, but slightly impressed. "Mum! Just let us in, and I will tell you why you _shouldn't have done that!," _she hissed at her mother. She turned to The Doctor, who was nursing his left cheek where there was an unmistakable hand print. "Are you okay?"

"It's not the first time. Mothers," he said heavily, "don't tend to like me."

***

They were sat in painful silence in the Redmond's living room whilst Scarlett's father made everybody tea. The clock ticked obnoxiously loudly. Every time The Doctor moved his feet the squeak of his shoes on the wooden floor reverberated absurdly around the room. Scarlett smiled alternately between her mother and The Doctor, who still had a red wheel on his cheek. When her father came into the room with the tray of mugs, everybody seized them and started to sip the comforting brown puddle so they would have some excuse not to look shiftily at each other.

Scarlett tapped her fingers on the side of her mug, emblazoned with Belle from Beauty and the Beast. "I'm going to tell you something now, something I very much doubt you'll believe, but you want the truth, and you're going to get it." She paused, looking perplexedly at the blank TV screen, as if hoping someone would appear and tell her where to begin. "Don't interrupt either, okay? Because this will be hard enough without questions or add-ins." She glared around at the room, and waited for their nodded assent before she took a very deep breath. "6 days ago, I found a blue box. It was bigger on the inside." Her words stumbled out at first, tripping over each other and shuffling to the corners of the room, embarrassed by their presence. Then they began to tumble out of her, becoming more self-assured, standing tall and proud, these beautiful, eloquent words that she was using to describe the best days of her life. She was a storyteller, there was no mistaking that. "Then he brought me back."

Pin filled silence tingled around the room whilst Scarlett sat, anticipation oozing from every pore.

"Good God, he's drugged you." Mrs. Redmond gazed at her daughter as if she had discovered penicillin.

Scarlett's eyes met her Father's, and strange looks passed over both of their faces. They both bit their lips and looked anywhere but at each other, but neither could suppress the laughter that bubbled over in to the room, her petrol-chuckle and his throaty roar breaking the tension.

"Fine! Fine! You both laugh at me, but mark my words, he's drugged her!"

"He hasn't drugged her, Margaret. Think logically, if he had drugged her would he have brought her back, and _come into the house _to drink tea with us? Honestly!" Mr. Redmond grinned companionably at The Doctor. "But, what really happened, son?"

"Scarlett's told you the truth, every bit of it."

"You can't expect us to believe that you travel in time in a blue box that is bigger on the inside. Fairytales."

"I said you wouldn't believe me! What the point was in telling you the truth was, I don't know. It would have been better to make up a pack of lies." The teenage girl who had so often in the last 6 days seemed much older, reverted to type, huffing loudly and folding her arms, shooting her parents dirty looks.

"Scarlett, you can't expect your parents to accept your story, it does sound rather suspect, let them be a little incredulous, it probably sounds like I did drug you." The Doctor was affable with his tea, but annoyed her with his calm.

"Thankyou!" Mrs. Redmond smiled in triumph at The Doctor, pleased with her new ally, temporarily forgetting the slap.

"Of course," he continued, "they have a right to be a little frazzled, after all, they thought you'd been abducted, we must have put them in such an awful situation."

"Exactly, this man speaks sense, Scarlett." Mr. Redmond nodded at The Doctor with approval.

It suddenly dawned on her what he was doing; her parents had been charmed around to liking him, and they didn't even realise it. She forced herself to be calm so she wouldn't ruin whatever big plan the Doctor had up his sleeve. "I could show you." She spoke very quietly, so everybody had to strain to hear her, so they would catch every word.

The Doctor moved his fingers slightly; Scarlett felt them tap her wrist.

"What do you mean Scarlett?" Her Father was looking at her strangely, half as if he distrusted her and half as if he was longing to believe her.

"I mean, I could show you. Show you what I mean, show you the blue box. The time machine. The TARDIS." She was speaking directly to her Father now, the man who had read her bedtime stories of magic and myth and everything she had ever dared to believe. "Come with me."

Slowly, Mr. Redmond stood up.

"No! You can't honestly believe her!" Mrs Redmond cried, laughing. "Scarlett, tell him! It's all been very clever darling but you can stop now. Please." Scarlett heard the panic in her Mother's voice, her fear of things she couldn't explain.

"Give me one minute. Please Mum, I know you're scared, I was scared too, but, please. One minute. Come outside with me, let me show you."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will she or won't she?

Thankyou for reading you beautiful writers and readers out there, it means the world to me, as do your reveiws.

Happy Reading!


	12. Here's Everything You've Never Believed

**DISCLAIMER:** If I owned Doctor Who I wouldn't be sitting on a dodgy laptop trying to upload this.

We're almost there guys! Only one more chapter left after this one. I finished yesterday, and it was the first time I'd written this knowing what you lot all thought. It was a ot of pressure, I can tell you, I really don't want to dissapoint the people whose comments have made me so happy =]

Here we go then, for the penultimate time...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scarlett led her parents outside, The Doctor just behind her, his long fingers curled around her shoulder, giving her strength and support. He could tell she was scared. She had, by her own admission, not wanted to explain all this to her parents. A far off talk with her Father maybe, but 'not for years'. He hadn't made anything easier for her either; messing up the dates like he had done. Irate Mothers whose daughters had disappeared for days on end with strange men didn't make the easiest people to reason with, he should have learnt that by now. Especially when their daughter was a teenage school-girl.

"Right. Here we are." They had arrived around the corner in the shadowy alley.

The Doctor frowned. Would the Redmond's be able to see the TARDIS? Would Scarlett, on whom the protective measure did not work, be able to explain to her parents what she had seen?

"Goodness." Mrs. Redmond breathed, looking straight at his blue box. "You were... you were telling the truth."

Mr. Redmond's eyes were slightly less focussed. The Doctor could see his gaze was being deflected from the TARDIS, his pupils skidding as if he was in a moving car. "I... I can see it but..." He looked uncertainly at the Doctor.

"Yes. You can see it but you can't focus on it for long. It's supposed to do that to people, a protective measure. Something which apparently doesn't have any effect on your wife and daughter." He looked at the pair, Scarlett staring at her Mother in surprise.

"This doesn't prove anything though. It's a box. He still might have..."

"Doctor? Can I show her inside?" She waited for his affirmation, he liked that about her, before opening it. As it had before, the fact he had locked it made no difference to her.

For a moment Mrs. Redmond gazed at the improbability. She was quiet, untrusting, terrified. All the things that were to be expected.

"Mum?" Scarlett said tentatively.

It broke the spell. Mrs. Redmond swung around, her hands pressed over her eyes as if she were a small child trying to hide herself from a monster under the bed. "No!" She cried. "No, no, no! No more! I will not believe this. It makes no sense, it's utterly impossible. No!"

Scarlett turned to her Father appealing, mouthing 'do something' to him. But, instead of her Father, it was the Doctor who approached Mrs. Redmond.

"I know you're scared. I understand that. I've seen a hundred people just like you, people who've always been taught that some things just don't exist. But here I am, here's my time-machine, here's everything you've never believed." His voice was calming and reassuring, and he looked directly into her eyes. "It feels like if you accept what your daughter is telling you, nothing will make sense anymore. The thing is, Mrs. Redmond, your world is changing. You've seen it; Canary Wharf, the day the Earth moved. I'm real. Scarlett is telling you the truth."

She nodded, and he noticed how similar her eyes were to Scarlett's. "But, if it's true, if I accept what's in there, what that box can do, what Scarlett says about herself... what does that mean for my family? What will happen to us?"

The Doctor smiled. "Nothing. I can promise you, absolutely nothing. Scarlett found me, Scarlett is special, she has some connection to me, it happens sometimes. But that will not put you any danger. No-one will ever know, no-one will ever come knocking on your door. You'll carry on as you were before."

"Really?"

He nodded. "It just means you know. You know what happened to your daughter, you won't have this secret driving wedge between you."

"There are other people, Mum, people who've met the Doctor, gone off with him. They're all safe. Infact, they're probably safer!" Scarlett put her hand on her Mothers arm. "Even if you don't trust me, trust the Doctor. Will you come inside with me?"

Mrs. Redmond hesitated.

"Mum? I want you to believe me."

Looking at her daughters face, innocent and upturned to her, she looked brand new. Maybe, just maybe, her Mother thought, she could be brand new with her. She nodded, and clutched her daughters hand; a life raft in this terrifying new ocean of truths. Together, they crossed the threshold into the TARDIS; into another world.

***

It wouldn't be as easy as all that. There would be questions in the house, scores of them, before the little family could even get past the fact their daughter had vanished for 9 days. He could see it in her Mother's eyes, the question of "_If you wanted to run away that much, how bad must it be here, with us?"_ The answer would only lead to more questions, questions he wouldn't be able to guide her through.

Then again, he thought, watching Scarlett sip tea and push her coppery hair behind her ears, she'd do all right on her own.

He had been coerced into staying for tea, which, as Scarlett had told him, would not be anything more than her Father's Welsh Rarebit. It was very good, the Doctor mused. They had even watched the news, on which Scarlett had been the number 3 story.

"Mum!" She had cried when a school-photograph of her appeared on the screen. "I've always told you, if I die tragically or go missing and they need a photo of me to put on the news, DON'T give them my school photo!"

"You've really spent time thinking about that?" The Doctor asked, pleasantly bemused.

Scarlett made a face.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, whaddya think? Hope you liked it, especially now it's reaching it's concusion.

But we've still got one more chapter to go, and, (what I hope will be) a big twist to come!

Join me tomorrow!


	13. Thankyou, For Everything

**DISCLAIMER: **As this is the final disclaimer, I shall now say that I DO own Doctor Who. That's my big secret, I'm actually the BBC.  
Well. I don't, naturelle mon. Sillies.

Well, this is it. It's Time to face, the final curtain (to quote Frank Sinatra).  
I've loved writing this, and I've loved reading your comments. It's meant so much to me. So thankyou for giving me the oppertunity to publish my first non-one-shot fic. And I was SO unbeleivably nervous before I posted the first chapter.

Actually. I'm a bit more nervous now.

Here goes, for the final time, prepare to say goodbye to Scarlett....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although she knew he couldn't stay, she wished he would. He was a bit like snow; gloriously unexpected, utterly transforming to everything he touched and not all-together real. And, like snow, at the back of your mind there was always the knowledge that you would wake up one morning to find him gone.

Scarlett was playing a game with herself now, if she could go for a minute without blinking, if the News Castor didn't say the work 'public' for a whole item, if she could make her Mother stay in her chair, then The Doctor wouldn't leave her. It wasn't working though. She blinked, the Welsh man on the TV said 'public sector', her Mother got up to collect the plates all at once.

And The Doctor looked at her.

And she knew.

"I want to show you something." She said, her voice remarkably calm and tearless. "Come upstairs."

He did, marvelling at the love these parents showered on their daughter as he walked up the stairs accompanied by framed school photograph Scarlett's, smiling shyly at first and then flicking their hair over the backs of their blazers with painted fingernails.

Her room was the first on the left, looking out over the garden and houses beyond. As Scarlett opened the door, The Doctor hesitated outside for a moment, unsure if he were allowed to enter this private sanctuary of girl-dom.

"Don't be silly, Doctor." She said, smiling. "I think we're past all that."

She had 3 white walls, and one with a blue, Victorian style wallpaper on it. Her bookcase was large, and he saw that well-loved way the books had all been put in. Carefully, methodically, so as not to bend the bindings. She had a little wooden desk in the corner, a notebook and pen left haphazardly spread over the wood as if she'd left them in a hurry. Above her bed was tacked a large poster of a dark-haired actor, the word HAMLET scored underneath in bright red. No boy-bands for her obviously. He wouldn't have expected any less.

Her view looked out onto her garden and the houses over the way from her. Yellow roses, gray 4x4's, neat little lawns and clean glass in the doors and frames. Scarlett stood for a moment by the window, looking out a familiar view and feeling like something had changed, irrevocably. It took a few minutes to realise that the change was her.

The Doctor spotted the book she was reading on her bedside table. "Oh, I like th – "

"Don't leave me." Scarlett interrupted, whirling to face him, a burning intensity in her eyes. "Take me with you, leave me on some faraway planet if you have to, just don't... don't leave me here."

The Doctor looked at her helplessly, the book still in his hand. "I can't."

"No! You _can't_ leave me. Not here. You can't show me all those things and worlds and possibilities and leave me here! You can't! It's not fair!" She shouted at him, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

"You've got to sta– "

"No!" Scarlett rushed at him, her hands balled into fists, hitting his chest ineffectually. He took it, and gathered her up in his arms and held her to him, refusing to let her go until she went limp in his arms, sobbing and murmuring the immortal line: "_It's not fair_."

_Life_, he thought, _just isn't fair._

When she had quietened, he pushed her away a little and gripped her shoulders. "Scarlett Redmond, look at me." He waited until her green eyes had found his. "You know why I have to leave you. You know that I wouldn't if I had a choice. You know that I think you're brilliant. You know that when you grow up you're going to have worlds at your fingertips. You don't need me or my TARDIS. You do it all by yourself."

She sniffed, her tear tracks glistening in the increasing gloom. "But what if I want you and your TARDIS?"

"Oh, Scarlett, look at you. You have so many people that love you. Your parents adore you. Did you see your friends on the news, appealing for 'witnesses to come forward'? They miss you. What I wouldn't do to have what you have. If there's one thing you should have learnt from me Miss Redmond, it's that you should grab onto the people who care about you and hold on tight. Your life is here. I can never have a life like that." He smiled at her, sadly. "And anyway, you've got writing to do."

"I do?"

He tapped her temples. "You do."

***

It was dark outside when he left. Years later, Scarlett would be able to record those minutes in minute detail. The way her hair had been blown from her shoulders by the light breeze. The way she'd had to keep swallowing hard to keep the sting of tears from her throat. The air smelt cool and fresh, and like summer. Her feet were bare – she felt the damp grass on her right foot and the hard, gravelly pavement on her left. The alleyway the TARDIS was in felt different at night. The walls felt closer together, the bricks seemed to move in to each other.

The stars were enviably bright that night. Scarlett looked toward them and remembered the Bronte's kitchen. It felt like and age ago. It _was_ an age ago. She might have laughed at this thought, had the circumstances been different.

"Do you want one more look?" The Doctor asked. His Converse had dirt around the bottom, and he hadn't done his left lace up properly.

"No. It's probably better if..." She gestured helplessly. Her arms felt strangely heavy. She glanced at her hands, expecting to see them dark and leaden. Her blue nail varnish was still chipped.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Listen, I wanted to give you something. You don't actually need it, but, it kind of... Well. You'll see. Close your eyes."

She did so, curiously, and held her hands out. Into them she felt something cold and small and spiky being pressed.

"Open them."

She didn't. She kept them squeezed shut for a second more, savouring the glory of _not knowing_, of all the possibilities the gift could hold. When she did obey his command, however, she was not disappointed. "It's a key!"

The Doctor grinned and put his hands in his pockets. "To the TARDIS. Even though you can't come with me... It kind of makes you my official friend. Companion. Fellow Traveller. I know you can open it yourself, if you ever wanted to but –"

Scarlett would always remember the way he felt when she hugged him. Tall and thin and strong. His suit lapels brushed against her cheek and the top of his chin rested on her head. He was safety and fear and excitement and possibilities and stars and worlds. He was time. He was The Doctor.

He was the man who had changed her life, and that was really all that mattered.

"Before you go," Scarlett said when he was standing leant against the TARDIS doorframe, "there was something I've been wondering about. Who was that boy? The one you said was like me? Was he – is he – famous? "

The Doctor looked at her, wondering what had made her think to ask him that question at that moment. "He was a soldier in World War One. He lived to be a very old man. He saved someone's life. His name was Tim Latimer."

Scarlett froze. She wasn't sure she could physically begin to breathe again. Nothing that had come out of The Doctor's mouth during the time she had known him had shocked her more. Clearing her throat, she began to speak. "Latimer? Tim Latimer? Who went to a boys boarding school? And saved his best friends life in the first world war?"

He nodded, slowly.

"He was my Great Grandfather."

The Doctor shook his head. "No. You've got to be kidding. Too many co-incidences. Too strange..."

"He died when I was 5. I don't remember much about him, except that he smelt like an old man, like dusty shelves. When we visited him I used to sit on his knee and play... play with the little pocket watch he had. I loved it 'cuz it was shiny – although he didn't open it. Not ever. I tried to once, he took it away from me."

"That's my watch. The one I gave him. The piece of me I told you about."

"No. No-oh-oh!" Scarlett laughed loudly, clapping her hands together in glee. "This is crazy!"

"Everything about you is Scarlett." The Doctor said, still shaking his head in shock.

"It would explain it, though. Explain why I'm different, explain why I could see... Explain why my _Mum_ could see the TARDIS! He's her Grandfather, Doctor, it's in my genes." She stopped talking and looked straight up at him, buzzing. "I was always going to meet you. Even before I was born, this had been planned for me. It was my _destiny_ to save Charlotte Bronte. To save you."

"I don't believe it!" The Doctor said, gazing at her in wonder. "I mean, I do believe it, it makes everything make sense. But, I mean, what are the odds! Then again," he said, almost to himself, "stranger things have happened. Especially to me."

"We'll meet again, won't we?" Scarlett said suddenly, the cold key grasped tightly in her clammy hand. "This proves it. My Great-Grandfather, your TARDIS, me, you, we're all connected. We'll meet each other again?"

"If I'm lucky." The Doctor said. "Anybody's lucky if they get to meet you more than once, Scarlett Redmond." He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. "Thankyou. For everything."

"No. Thankyou. You've made me _me_ again. You've showed me a world." He smiled at her, and she returned it.

"Keep safe!" She called above the whirring and humming of the time machine. The _time machine_. Magic. _Look how much you've changed, Scarlett_, she thought through her tears.

Then, she her face to the sky and yelled it to whoever was listening.

"Look how much I've changed! Thankyou, Doctor! Thankyou!"

**THE END.**

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So. That was it. What did you think? Did it live up to your expectations? I'd really like you to comment on this and tell me whta you think, especially because it's the last one. Go on, you know you want too.  
If you do comment, could you also tell me if you think I should maybe do a follow-up to this? Like a, 10 years on thing? Or should I leave it as it is?

Lastly, I want to thankyou. Thankyou for sticking with me and reading and reveiwing. Couldn't have done it without you.


End file.
